Bonsai is a Blender mod

Bonsai installs like any other Blender add-on but it fundamentally changes how Blender behaves. Blender makes 3D shapes but Bonsai edits IFC files. IFC describes a building and building elements rather than a collection of geometry. A command that treats a wall as a lump of geometry would mess up, so Bonsai replaces Blender’s basic editing operators to be able to work with IFC.

If you have never used Blender, learn to move around the viewport and select things, and pick up the rest when a job calls for it.

Things that are subtly different in Bonsai

• The G key on the keyboard still moves the selection. But an IFC wall moves with its windows and doors, one of the relationships between IFC elements that Bonsai keeps up to date.
• X or Delete deletes. But deleting an IFC window now deletes its opening too.
• Shift-D and Alt-D duplicate. The copy of an IFC element is now a new element in the model, with its own identity, but of the same type as the original if that had one.
• Ctrl-J joins multiple objects into one. With Bonsai this leaves a single IFC element or type.
• Ctrl-V pastes. Pasted IFC objects arrive as plain geometry, not as IFC objects; use duplicate instead if you want the data as well.
• Tab enters edit mode. It now steps into an IFC element: the parts of an assembly, or the pieces of its geometry. There are multiple levels of edit mode in Bonsai whereas Blender has just one.
• Esc cancels. It now also backs out of those IFC edit modes.
• Space plays an animation in Blender. In Bonsai it now edits an IFC element’s profile or axis.
• Ctrl-S in Blender saves the .blend file. It now writes your IFC file.

Bonsai also replaces Blender’s properties panel and turns it into a tabbed panel with Blender’s scene settings tucked away at the end.

Blender tutorials can be wrong for Bonsai

As a rule of thumb: when a job is about the building, use Bonsai’s tools; Blender’s are for when it is about a shape.

What hasn’t changed

Moving around the viewport, selecting, rendering and mesh editing all work as they always did. You can build a shape with Blender’s modelling tools, but Bonsai is then used to turn this shape into a representation of an IFC element.

Where am I looking, what is selected, what shape is this are Blender questions. What is this thing, what is it made of, where does it belong are Bonsai questions - and the subject of the rest of this guide.

Install two Blenders if you need to

If plain Blender is part of your other work, it can be worth keeping a second installation without Bonsai rather than switching the add-on on and off.

Last updated 6 October 2026.